One of the sad facts of life is, people have places to be, and for too many of us, we have to use cars to get there. And while I am not necessarily against cars, I am against about 99.99999% of the people who drive them. I don't know what it is about getting behind a wheel that makes people so stupid!
As a quick anecdote, I have this theory that every city has it's own flavor of idiot driver. For example, LA driver are mean and angry; San Diego driver a recklessly crazy; and Sacramento drivers are just plain stupid (and wait until it rains, and it's like they forget what a car does >_<). But whatever way you slice it, drivers suck!
I find the most frustrating thing I have dealing with terrible drivers is that I have no way of conveying my specific grievances to those drivers around. Granted I can always use my middle finger, and I do on rare occasions when the driver knows exactly why they are getting the finger, but sometimes I feel it lacks the specificity to get my point across.
Now, I've spent a lot of time contemplating how to solve this problem. I don't know about you, but just driving around gives me a lot of time to think (unless I've got my music cranked loud enough, that is). Once I contemplated handing out "douche bag" tickets, which would basically just be slips of paper placed on people's windows explaining what kind of douchebaggery they did. But, while this would be effective for parking douchiness, or where you have the time to follow the idiot driver to their destination, this doesn't really work on the go.
And thus, what we really need is a collection of easily recognizable and message specific hand gestures to accurately convey to other drivers why they're idiots, and what they did to piss us off!
As a general note, it may be best, before gesturing, to employ a honk so as to get the attention of the idiot driver. What use is a hand gesture if it goes unseen? Right?! However, I also don't condone the overuse of the horn, so only employ it when absolutely necessary, like when Mr. Idiot Driver is about to hit you!
So, I have already come up a few hand gestures that will cover some of the issues that irritate me most while driving. Of course, I am always up for additions.
(1) The "you have a turn signal for a reason, jerk" signal. I find one of my biggest driving pet peeves is people's lack of using the turn signal. Hey, I'd love to know that you're turning here, so I can brake properly so as to not rear end you. Oh, and thanks for letting me know you were changing into my lane, so I could save space so as to get side swiped. Idiot! Who hasn't had issues with people not using their turn signals? No one. Ever. So, I often employ a hand signal to inform feeling travelers to use their darned signal! It's simple. Bring your fingers together like you are making an "o" with your hands. Then, quickly throw your fingers out to their longest extension. Now, do these two motions quickly a few times, back and forth. I find this makes a nice little flashing light looking thing with your hands. That way, the idiot (most likely in front of you) will know, "hey, I just pissed that person behind me off because I didn't use my signal."
(2) The "get off your cell phone" signal. OMG, people using their cell phones while driving make me soooooooooooooooo angry. First of all, just the fact that it's illegal to drive and talk on your phone is enough to make me dislike them. But second, I've been at the receiving end of too many close calls (pun totally intended) with errant driving to have anything but the deepest loathing for these people. So, I employ a nice gesture to get across that their phoning while driving is making me angry. This one is pretty basic. You just do the time honored phone fingers to the ear thing (you know, pinky and thumb out, with the other fingers curled in, and then put your hand to your ear). Now, to make sure you get across that you are pissed, and not that you want them to call you, you make sure that while you wiggle your phone fingers by your ear, you look really angry, and then you make a very pointed movement like you're hanging up the phone fingers call.
And (3) the "have you been drinking?" gesture. This is another gesture that I have appropriated from common human gesturing. With all hope, if these gestures were to become commonly used, people would understand their special meaning when behind the wheel. For this one, you just make the gesture like you're holding a cup. And then, once you have the person's attention, "tip" the "cup" to your mouth a few times to indicate drinking. This should indicate to the other driver that you're worried they may have had one too many before getting behind the wheel. Now, if you are on the receiving end of this gesture, one of two scenarios should be at play. One, you have actually been drinking, at which point I say to you "you're a terrible human being, putting everyone's lives at risk for your own stupid fun, pull over before you hurt someone, and you should be terribly, TERRIBLY ashamed of yourself!!!" Just putting that out there. Two, you have not been drinking (or doing something else that impairs your driving), at which point you may want to ask yourself "what about my driving is so bad, that some complete stranger would feel the need to express their concern that I have actually been drinking." Because trust me, there are A LOT of bad idiot drivers out there, so if I have to gesture that I think you're drinking, then you my friend are driving pretty terribly to warrant such special attention.
So, those are just 3 of the potentially plentiful list of more specific and helpful gesturing that we as drivers can employ to better express to other, bad drivers just how their terrible driving makes us feel. I hope yo expand on the list in the future, maybe with some help of some other enraged driver/victims. And if you see someone out there using one of these signals at you, you know what you've done wrong!
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